


Angels Come and Go

by incipimus



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Gay Relationship, Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Romance, janto, otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incipimus/pseuds/incipimus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was bound to happen, of course. But time just passes so fast when you're with someone you love. </p>
<p>Janto AU where Children of Earth never happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels Come and Go

_How unfair, it’s just our love_

_Found something real that’s out of touch_

_But if you searched the whole wide world_

_Would you dare to let it go?_

-Not About Angels, _Birdy_

 

Jack hides the bouquet of yellow tulips behind his back as the nurse carefully eases open a door marked  _Jones, Ianto_.

“Hey,” he says cheerfully, sidling in as Ianto struggles to raise his head. “I brought flowers for you. Might brighten up this place a little. I mean, really, who decided green curtains would match with those hideous bed sheets?”

Ianto lets out a tiny huff and leans heavily on his stack of pillows. “Jack.” Ianto’s voice wavers slightly, still infused with love. The wrinkles around his eyes deepen in amusement when Jack dumps the flowers in a vase and takes Ianto's hands. “Jones Ianto Jones.” There is a moment of silence as Jack looks down at their entwined hands. “How’re you doing today?” Jack asks, smoothing back the man’s silvery, thinning hair.

Ianto’s breaths rattle in his lungs and Jack fights the urge to run away. Ianto’s hands look so fragile, bones like fine china wrapped in thin, pale skin really, but he can remember what they used to look like. He remembers the way they handled mug handles and trays and guns and it’s dragging up painful memories. He takes a deep breath and pushes them down. Jack is so determined not to feel sad, not today (though that’s not going to happen, he knows, but at least he can try).

Ianto is nearly blind now, but the gaze he fixes on Jack is no less focused than the one he used fifty years ago, when it meant  _let’s go to bed_ ,  _let’s send Gwen away for a while_ ,  _let’s use that new stopwatch_ , and oh, god, he needs to stop. He lets Ianto look, and they sit in silence for a long while. He knows what’s coming.

“Do you… remember… what day today is?” Ianto’s voice is so soft, but Jack catches it even among the beeping of numerous machines (he’d know that voice anywhere, even in a crowd of thousands of people). Every atom inside of him screams no, but Jack forces himself to nod and he swallows, hard.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, eyes burning, his mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah. How could I forget?” Jack tries to clear his throat and looks down at their entwined fingers.

“And you… remember your …promise,” Ianto forces out between breaths, eyes falling half-closed. Jack can see how the effort exhausts him. What he wouldn’t give to transfer his lives to Ianto- and, again, Jack pushes the thought away and rubs tiny circles across Ianto’s thumb.

He was too impulsive then, too in-love, too foolish. He wishes he can take back the conversation, but he remembers every single word, and somehow that’s worse than the thousand years he was buried under twenty feet of earth.

_“Jack,” Ianto’s voice had been breathless, and Jack had stilled and held Ianto close. He idly ran his fingers up Ianto’s back. “Jack, you need to promise me something.”_

_“Anything,” Jack whispered-_

Stop. It.

“Jesus, Ianto.” His fingers tighten and he pushes down the new wave of sadness. His voice sounds croaky. “Yes. I remember.”

An image pops into his mind. Ianto, wrinkle-free, so close that Jack can pick out the light flecks among the blue, a tiny smirk on his lips, and he feel the way Ianto’s arms wrapped around him. He can taste the alcohol they’d shared, the weight of Ianto’s forehead against his own. Jack’s heart wrenches, slams into his ribcage and leaves him gasping for air. The overwhelming urge to  _just get away_  rises again.

“I can’t-” the chair overbalances and crashes to the floor when Jack pushes himself up and stumbles back. He hits the wall and looks up, clenching and unclenching his fists as the ceiling starts to swim. “There has to be another way. I’ll get the Doctor.” Something warm starts making its way down his face, but Jack ignores it, mind casting around frantically for a solution. “He can bring us into the future and we can have them transplant your organs and you can be young again, or we could find some alien to de-age you. I could find a way to give you my lives, or-” Jack dashes angrily at the trail of wetness on his face and forces the rest of his tears to stay back. He can’t have distractions now, he needs to collect himself and stop panicking. Jack’s hands shake incessantly and he shoves them into the pockets of his coat.

_“By the way, I love the coat,” Ianto calls with a smirk._

Jack feels a scream building in the back of his throat and concentrates on containing it, bringing in the military training. He forces his heart rate to slow and finally looks down. He’s trapped in Ianto’s loving gaze, held there. “Sorry,” he breathes (because he’s just remembered what Tosh said to Owen so many years ago when Owen was grieving in the radiation chamber- it was in the recording he had been forced to go through as director of Torchwood-  _“Please stop.” “Why? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t keep screaming.” “Because you’re breaking my heart.”_  And he realizes he may be breaking Ianto’s heart, and he can’t do that, not in the last time they will ever be together.)

After a moment, he quietly rights the chair and sits down, shoulders slumping under an invisible weight.

“Please,” he says quietly, a last-ditch effort. He can’t stop himself from resting his hand against Ianto’s face, gently.

“You’ll have to take care of the monitors first,” Ianto says, gesturing weakly at the machines. His eyes go unfocused for a moment and Jack knows the pain must be overwhelming. He bends down for a last kiss, lingering above Ianto for a moment and breathing in Ianto’s scent, almost hidden under the hospital smells.

“Do it now, Jack,” Ianto’s breath hitches.

“Right,” Jack takes a deep breath, steeling himself, pushing away the torrent of grief that's raging, thrashing against his insides and crushing his lungs. He ignores the way his hands shake and reaches forward towards the monitor, fumbling with the buttons along the bottom until it’s disabled.

“I love you, Ianto Jones,” Jack says, hands poised over the tube connected to Ianto’s mask. His voice catches in his throat. The burning sensation starts up in his eyes again.

“It’s alright.” Ianto’s weak voice is soft. “It’s alright,” he repeats as Jack untwists the tube and removes the mask. Jack grips his hands tightly and feels the waterworks start up again.

Ianto’s chest is heaving now, lungs desperately searching for air, and his eyes lock onto Jack’s. They’re desperate, panicky, but Jack can see the calm acceptance underlying everything. “Love you,” Ianto chokes out between one gasp and the next, and Jack’s fingers tighten around his, feeling the heart rate speeding up. Jack is a powerless leaf, swept along in the raging river that is death and there is no way to stop it, and all Jack can do is grip Ianto’s hands as tightly as he can and whispers “I love you, I love you,” faster and faster until it becomes background noise. _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_ , as Ianto thrashes slightly in his sheets and his breaths come shorter and faster.

_“Anything,” Jack whispered._

_“If I ever enter my nineties, you’ll have to do something about it,” Ianto says, leaning back to look at him properly and shifting in a way that makes Jack bite his lip. “I want you to promise.”_

_“I promise,” Jack says, pressing his face against Ianto’s shoulder._  

And then one gasp- Jack can feel it, it travels through their grip and Jack feels as if he’s been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. His entire body tingles. “Ianto?” His voice sounds so tiny and terrified, like a child’s. It hangs in the air for a moment. “Ianto?” he tries again, because this can’t be happening.

Ianto is slumped against the pillows, vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. Jack doubles over as his lungs are stabbed over and over again and his stomach twists on itself (he’s never been this sick before, not even when they found that live alien people were cutting up). Jack doesn’t know how much has time has passed before he manages to brush his lips lightly over Ianto’s. The sense of finality leaves an ache that settles deep in his bones.

Jack’s hands are still trembling when he reattaches the tube and carefully replaces the mask. He presses the call button and buries his face in his hands.

The nurse bustles in with a team of doctors and they circle around him, frantically checking for vital signs and shouting commands at one another. Jack slumps in his chair as grief washes over him in a tidal wave. He tries to protest when they throw a sheet over Ianto and begin wheeling him out of the room, but he’s just so  _exhausted_  now. No more tricks, no more loopholes.

The movement around him blurs away and Jack wonders what exactly is left for him in Torchwood, in Cardiff, on Earth.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank my lovely beta looking-for-the-right-doctor on tumblr. This took about three months to write, including the long periods of writer's block. Thanks for reading :)


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